4. Chapter 14- Theories of Personality

Question 1

What is personality?

Answer 1

Personality- a distinctive and relatively stable pattern of behaviour, thoughts, motives, and emotions that characterizes an individual

Trait- a characteristic of an individual, describing a habitual way of behaving, thinking, or feeling

Question 2

What is psychoanalysis?

What are psychodynamic theories?

Answer 2

Psychoanalysis- theory of personality and a method of psychotherapy developed by Sigmund Freud; emphasizes unconscious motives and conflicts

Psychodynamic theories- theories that explain behaviour and personality in terms of unconscious energy dynamics within the individual

Question 3

What are the 3 systems of personality?

Answer 3

Id- in psychoanalysis, the part of personality containing inherited psychic energy, particularly sexual and aggressive instincts
Ego- in psychoanalysis, the part of personality that represents reason, good sense, and rational self-control
Superego- in psychoanalysis, the part of personality that represents conscience, morality, and social standards

Question 4

What is libido?

What’s are defence mechanisms?

Answer 4

In psychoanalysis, the psychic energy that fuels the life or sexual instincts of the id

Defence mechanisms- methods used by the ego to prevent unconscious anxiety or threatening thoughts from entering consciousness

Question 5

What are the 5 primary defence mechanisms?

Answer 5

1. Repression- when a threatening idea, memory or emotions in blocked from consciousness
2. Projection- when a person’s own unacceptable or threatening feelings are repressed and attributed to someone else
3. Displacement- when people direct their emotions toward things or animals or people
4. Regression- when a person reverts to a previous phase of psychological development
5. Denial- when people refuse to admit that something unpleasant is happening

Question 6

What are psychosexual stages?

What is the Oedipus complex?

Answer 6

Psychosexual stages- in freuds theory, the idea that sexual energy takes different forms as the child matures; the stages are oral, anal, phallic (oedipal), latency, and genital

Oedipus complex- in psychoanalysis, a conflict occurring in the phallic (Oedipal) stage, in which a child desires the parent of the other sex and views the same-sex parent as a rival

Question 7

What is collective unconscious?

What are the archetypes?

Answer 7

Collective unconscious- in jungian theory, the universal memories and experiences of humankind, represented in the symbols, stories and images that occur across all cultures
Archetypes- universal, symbolic images that appear in art, myths, stories, and dreams; to Jungians, they reflect the collective unconscious

Question 8

What is the object relations school?

Answer 8

A psychodynamic approach that emphasizes the importance of the infants first two years of life and the baby’s formative relationships, especially with the mother

Question 9

What are the 3 scientific failings of psychodynamic theories?

Answer 9

1. Violating the principle of falsifiability- impossible to disconfirm or confirm
2. Drawing universal principle from the experiences of a few atypical patients- Freud generalizes from a few individuals and applies it to all human beings
3. Basing theories of personality development on the retrospective accounts of adults- worked backwards and created theories based off of themes

Question 10

What are objective tests (inventories)?

Answer 10

Standardized questionnaires requiring written responses; they typically include scales on which people are asked to rate themselves

Question 11

What is factor analysis?

Answer 11

A statistical method for analyzing the intercorrelations among various measures or test scores; clusters of measures or scores that are highly correlated are assumed to measure the same underlying trait or ability (factor)

Question 12

What are the big five robust factors that underlie clusters of correlated items from factor analysis of traits?

Answer 12

1. Extroversion versus introversion- extent to which people are outgoing or shy
2. Neuroticism (negative emotionality) versus emotional stability- extent a person suffers anxiety and tendency to feel negative emotions
3. Agreeableness versus antagonism- extent to which people are good natured or irritable, etc.
4. Conscientiousness versus impulsiveness- degree to which people are responsible or undependable etc.
5. Openness to experience versus resistance to new experiences- extent to which people are curious, imaginative, questioning etc.

Question 13

What are the 3 ways researchers measure genetic contributions to personality?

Answer 13

Studying personality traits in other species
Studying the temperaments of human infants and children
Doing heritability studies of twins and adopted individuals

Question 14

What are temperaments?

Answer 14

Physiological dispositions to respond to the environment in certain ways; they are present in infancy and in many nonhuman species and are assumed to be innate
Temperaments include:
Reactivity- How excitable, arousable, responsive baby is
Soothability- how easily the baby is calmed
Positive and negative emotionality

Question 15

What is heritability?

Answer 15

A statistical estimate of the proportion of the total variance in some trait that is attributable to genetic differences among individuals within a group

Question 16

What is reciprocal determinism?

Answer 16

In social-cognitive theories, the two-way interaction between spectators of the environment and aspects of the individual in the shaping of personality traits

Page 539 picture

Question 17

What is a nonshared environment?

Answer 17

Unique aspects of a person’s environment and experience that are not shared with family members

Winning lead in school okay might make you wanna be an actor
Being bullied might make you see yourself as weak
What

Question 18

What are the 3 kinds of evidence that crumble the belief that personality is primarily determined by how parents treat their children?

Answer 18

1. The shared environment of the home has little of any influence on most personality traits
2. Few parents have a single child-rearing style that is consistent over time and that they use with all their children
   3 even when parents try to be consistent in the way they treat their children, their may be little relation between what they do and how the children turn out

Question 19

What is culture?

Answer 19

A program of shared rules that governs the behaviour of members of a community or society and a set of values, beliefs, and attitudes shared by most members of that community

Question 20

What are individualist cultures?

What are collectivist cultures?

Answer 20

Individualist- cultures in which the self is regarded as autonomous, and individual goals and wishes are prized above duty and relations with others
“I am a psychologist, I am out going, agreeable, and ambitious”

Collectivist- cultures in which the self is regarded as embedded in relationships, and harmony with ones group is prized above individual goals and wishes
“I am the son of a farmer, descended from 3 gens of storytellers from my moms side”

Question 21

What us humanist psychology?

Answer 21

A psychological approach that emphasizes personal growth, resilience, and the achievement of human potential

Question 22

What was Abraham Maslow’s view on psychology?

Answer 22

Said it ignored many of positive aspects of life (joy laughter love)
Said the traits most important to personality were not the big five (big five were qualities of self actualized person)

Question 23

What was Carl Rogers view on psychology?

What is unconditional positive regard?

Answer 23

How you behave depends on your subjective reality (not external reality)
To become fully functioning people Rogers said we need unconditional positive regard- love or support given to another person with no conditions attached
Most are raised with conditional positive regard
“I will love you if you behave well”

Question 24

What is Rollo May’s view on psychology?

Answer 24

Belief in free will
Emphasized inherently difficult and tragic aspects of human condition (loneliness, anxiety, etc)
May brought existentialism- a philosophical approach that emphasizes the inevitable dilemmas and challenges of the human existence

Free will carries a price in anxiety and despair

Question 25

What are the 6 major influences of personality?

Answer 25

Psychodynamic- unconscious dynamics shape human motives, guilts, conflicts, and defences
Genetic- children born with some temperaments, many traits are influenced by genes
Environmental- parents, peer group, situation, chance events
Cultural- cultural norms specify which traits are valued
Humanist- people can exercise free will to become the person they want to be
Narrative- personality rests on the stories people make to explain their lives